


If By Chance You're Here Alone

by lovethatwewerein



Category: Glee
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethatwewerein/pseuds/lovethatwewerein
Summary: It’s not that he’s never been here before, study dates years ago turned movie nights until his phone inevitably rang. For a while, it was his safe place - the one building in all of New York where he truly fit, a puzzle piece slipped into place to create a beautiful image - but then he’d leave, stolen away to be mismatched and misshapen to squeeze into the gaps of someone else’s life.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe, Eli.C/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	If By Chance You're Here Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'When We Were Young' by Adele.

It’s not that he’s never been here before, study dates years ago turned movie nights until his phone inevitably rang. For a while, it was his safe place - the one building in all of New York where he truly fit, a puzzle piece slipped into place to create a beautiful image - but then he’d leave, stolen away to be mismatched and misshapen to squeeze into the gaps of someone else’s life. 

Those days faded into arguments over who he was becoming, someone twisted and warped until the cracks disappeared and he was picture perfect (not to him - never to him) but to the only person he could see caring more than he did. It all blew up in the March, bitter resentment seeping into each syllable until his ears were ringing and the door was slamming shut forever. 

But now, with nothing except a barren finger and the files still heavy in his bag, he’s not entirely sure he has anywhere else to go. Rachel won’t take him, firmly planted on Kurt’s side of the divorce and Tina is back in Ohio with her parents. If he could think straight, he’d maybe call Santana, ask if she and Brittany are willing to put him up for a few days until he figures himself out. But his brain is as foggy as his vision and the 4C on the door blurs more each time he blinks. 

There’s no sound coming from behind the door, not that he can hear over the ringing in his own ears anyway. Briefy, he wonders if there’s no one inside - if he’s going to be left on the doorstep with a backpack and loose curls matted to his forehead - but then there’s a loud clash, a distant shout and he sucks in a tight breath. 

His hand is raised to knock, poised just under the door number, and it shakes something fierce. He can’t even be sure Sebastian still lives here, the same apartment as five years ago when they were both pushing themselves through college, but he doesn’t have much of a choice now that he’s here. It’s worth a try. 

His knuckles rap against the wood once. Twice. And he can hardly breathe, vision swimming before it flies open. The man who answers is clearly not Sebastian, slightly shorter and a bit more bulky. He’s saying something, maybe a greeting or an accusation and Blaine is quick to calm himself down enough to listen. 

“Hey,” the man repeats again, confused smile resting on mature features. “Can I help you?” 

“I-” Blaine tries, the words catching in the back of his throat. He coughs, a desperate attempt to pull himself together. “I was looking for someone - must’ve got the wrong house.” 

The man nods, small sympathetic smile appearing as Blaine moves to turn away. The door is almost closed, just a few inches away from blocking noise from the outside world and he stops, Sebastian’s voice closer than it’s been in years. 

“Who was at the door?” 

Blaine turns and he’s there, still just as tall with the same swoop to his hair that he’d had when they first met. But he’s older, rounded around the edges like someone’s run over every inch of his skin with cotton until it’s soft with just a few sandpaper corners. He’s wearing a popped collar, a white one that somehow seems more elegant than the rest, and his arm is resting around the other man’s waist, a question in his eyes. 

“Blaine?” 

It hits him like a truck, how similar he must look to five years ago that it didn’t take a second for Sebastian to recognise him. Or maybe it’s his gait - slumped shoulders and the same dip in his spine that he’d carried back then, weighed down by Kurt’s expectations. Whatever it is, he’s carried it for so long that it’s the most recognisable part of him and that hurts almost as much as Sebastian’s next words. 

“I’ll just be a second, babe,” he says, an ice bucket of words drenching Blaine in their implications. The other man presses a quick kiss to the taller man’s cheek, a quick curious glance back at Blaine before he’s gone. Sebastian shuts the door gently. “I didn’t think I’d see you here again.” 

He shrugs, faux casualness that doesn’t really fit with the turmoil rolling around inside him. Dozens of questions tumbling between the others, the most prominent being ‘how?’ It couldn’t have been so long that all of Sebastian’s “I don’t do boyfriends” spread across his chest like wildfire, an alarm bell ringing in his head each time he entertained the idea of following his heart and not his routine. 

“Kurt and I just divorced,” he tells him, bitterness seeping into every vowel as he pushes them past his teeth. He’s not still in love with Kurt, not a lot anyway, but the years he’d invested in their relationship, in their marriage, can’t disappear overnight. “Officially.” 

“That’s great,” Sebastian smiles and there’s probably an ‘I told you so’ lingering on each consonant, right opinions from half a decade ago still etched upon his skin. “I’m happy for you, Blaine - truly. But why are you here?”

It’s the question he’s been asking himself since he arrives in the building, a pin code he’d memorised when his life seemed to be going at max speed entered at the entrance door. Having it be the same code as the last time he was here doesn’t seem like the safest option but it got him up the four flights of stairs, willing up the courage to do what he should have done before. 

“I don’t know,” he says honestly, each drunken memory in the teal paint of the hallway ricocheting through his mind. Every time Sebastian had kept him from falling into something he could never walk away from purely because he cared. “I wasn’t sure where else to go.” 

Sebastian nods, like he holds all the answers to Blaine’s problems and it’s such a familiar look - self-confidence sprinkled with concern - that it almost moves him to tears. “Don’t, like, all of your McKinley friends live in New York?” 

Bile rises in his throat at the point, most of the people he knows still live in the city - different boroughs and smaller apartments - but they’d take him in a heartbeat. Why he could forget about them in a moment of pain is beyond him, maybe fate wanted him to land on Sebastian’s doorstep. 

“Yeah, they do. I just don’t have any of their keys so I have to wait until they get home from work.” 

It’s a lie, one that curls his insides into an unrecognisable shape that he hopes Sebastian can’t see through his skin. He’s not sure he believes it but he lets it slide, leaning back against the front door and it brings Blaine’s attention to what he wants to know. 

“So who’s that?” he gestures loosely to the door, his intention clear despite the panel of wood between them and the object of his curiosity. Sebastian blushes, tilting his head towards the floor and it’s the first time Blaine’s ever really seen him be embarrassed about anything. He kind of hates it. 

“Oh,” he chuckles, burying his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He glances up at Blaine then, all shining green eyes and self-conscious hope in something that seems a lot like love. “That’s Eli. My boyfriend.” 

“Boyfriend?” he asks with a lilt, curiosity underscoring each letter across his tongue. He ignores the bitter twist in his heart because that’s not his place - it was never going to be. 

“Of about three years now.” 

“That’s great,” he says, digging the words from deep in his stomach and pushing them into the air between him and Sebastian. “Three years is a long time.” 

“It is,” Sebastian concedes, tilting his head to the left like he’s trying to listen behind the door. “Can you keep a secret?” 

“I’m pretty sure,” Blaine answers because, even if he’s not completely okay, he is happy for Sebastian. He deserves this, at least. 

The other man tugs his hand out of his pocket, fingers pinched around a silver band that Blaine would know anywhere, the time he’d spent staring at his own sitting above the haze of his mind. There’s a second where he’s not sure how to react, whether to admit that the sight of it sends a punch through his gut or to wish Sebastian all the best. He doesn’t really want to do either, both hurting as much as the other, but Sebastian is looking at him like he wants a reaction and he’s always been good at putting people before himself. 

“That’s a big commitment,” he says instead of anything productive, battling every bone in his body that wants him to fall into the wall his shoulder is resting on. Give up for a moment and let the stress of the day, including this, overtake him until he’s better. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?” 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything.” 

And it’s genuine, each shifting syllable confident beyond belief as they reach his ears. “Then I’m really happy for you.”

Maybe the words crack, dipping in volume or meaning as they claw their way from his chest to the space between them, but he isn’t sure. Whatever happens, he knows that he says something and Sebastian smiles back. The ring is tucked back into his pocket, out of sight and out of Blaine’s mind, and he’s almost ready to scream. 

“Like I said, I’m really happy for you,” he says, hitching his bag higher on his shoulder and pushing himself off the wall. 

“Are you going to be okay?” Sebastian asks him, that same concerned tone from five years ago levelling against his ears until he’s drowning in them. 

He nods, swallowing the desperate need to cry as he escapes to the stairwell of Sebastian’s apartment building. A missed connection that he didn’t notice until it dropped from his eyeline and was swept up by someone else. “I’m sure Tina will be happy to see me.” 

He doesn’t hear the door click shut, doesn’t hear anything Sebastian or his boyfriend say, but the ringing from before he knocked returns fully, overtaking his senses until he’s caught in the rain of New York City.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at love-that-we-were-in on tumblr.


End file.
